The National Collegiate Athletic Association was born more than 100 years ago in response to criticism that college sports were out of control and putting athletes at risk. Since then, most changes to intercollegiate athletics and the association primarily responsible for overseeing it have been driven by outside pressure, culminating in a proposal announced Tuesday by new NCAA Secretary Charlie Baker. .
In a letter to leaders of Division I, the NCAA’s highest level of competition, Baker wrote, “We are continuing to discuss reform proposals that would provide the same benefits.” “So the time has come for us in the NCAA to provide our own forward-looking framework.”
The plan, developed by Baker after months of research, would allow all Division I organizations to directly compensate players for the use of their names, images and likenesses.
It also created a new division for the wealthiest and most powerful programs, giving them significant autonomy over how they spend their money, as long as they agree to “invest at least $30,000 annually in the Enhanced Education Trust Fund.” It will give you sex. Half of their athletes.”
Sportswriters and commentators described Baker’s plan this way:Breakthrough” and “Revolutionary” And in a sense, it will be. This would break the NCAA’s historic self-imposed barrier that has prevented universities from paying athletes directly beyond their education costs.
And it’s an acknowledgment of the long-standing desire of the Association’s 40 to 60 most powerful football members to have more control over their own destinies, as well as the 200 others who play Division I basketball. It will officially separate from the 300 organizations. Participants from the remaining 130-odd universities currently playing in the Football Bowl Division.
But it’s also clearly a nod to the reality that the NCAA clings to its authority over college sports. It is an attempt to prevent Congress and the courts from further undermining their authority and to prevent the largest programs from being withdrawn. It is completely independent from the NCAA and forms its own independent association.
“What Ross calls ‘revolutionary,’ I belatedly call reactionary,” said Mark Edelman, a Baruch College law professor, in a characterization of Baker’s proposal by Yahoo’s Ross Delenger. He spoke in response to the request. “This association is #NCAA, ignore experts in the field and do nothing to promote reform until their backs are legally against the wall. Now, their backs are legitimately against the wall, and Baker knows it. ”
Karen Weaver, an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has written extensively about college athletics, said Baker’s proposal was “a way to keep the organization together under the NCAA umbrella, while also providing tremendous flexibility and almost unlimited freedom.” “It gives the money to the best schools.” ”
Plenty of problems for bakeries
The list of issues facing the NCAA is long and includes legal and political challenges to the association’s authority. The confusion and division created by the confusing situation of paying for name, image and likeness rights. and cruel organizational actions related to conference realignment.
As part of its efforts to navigate its political and legal landscape, the NCAA hired Baker, a Republican who previously served as governor of Massachusetts, as its first leader without a professional background in athletics.
The most pressing dilemma facing Baker and the NCAA involves compensation for athletes, which is the subject of multiple lawsuits and bills in Congress.
The plan he shared with university leaders on Tuesday states that the NCAA “will, first and foremost, ensure that all Division I universities are able to provide enhanced educational benefits to their student-athletes at whatever level they deem appropriate. It is important.” Second, rules should be changed to give Division I schools the opportunity to license name, image and likeness rights to student-athletes of their own choosing. ”
Bringing payments for name, image and likeness rights under university control will, among other things, “help to level what is rapidly becoming a very uneven playing field between men and women,” Professor Baker said. Told. Gender equality regulations as they invest in athletic programs. ”
The NIL ecosystem that is currently developing involves quasi-independent “collectives” of donors supporting specific universities, and between supporting athletic programs and athletes in a small number of sports, primarily for men. creating great injustice.
Another key element of Professor Baker’s proposal, creating a new division for “best-resourced” institutions, is that the universities with the largest and richest athletic programs have, for more than 40 years, This is an idea that has been proposed intermittently. most recently about 10 years ago).
They have long felt held back by having to make certain decisions alongside less wealthy programs that want to limit the amount their athletic programs spend on things like scholarships and coaching staff. Baker’s letter states that the proposed subdivision would allow these wealthy programs to “differ from the rest of the rules in Division 1” in terms of “scholarship commitments and roster size, recruiting, transfers, NILs,” etc. It said that it would be possible to “create possible rules.”
Instead, programs that join the new division must commit to putting at least $30,000 annually into a trust fund for at least half of their athletes, within the framework of Title IX, the federal law mandating gender equality. be. Educational programs that include athletics.
The NCAA’s largest and wealthiest programs have already been slowly separating themselves through a conference realignment process that has led to accusations of conspiracy among some of the nation’s most prominent universities.
Many observers believe the logical end goal of that screening process is for dozens of universities to launch their own megaconferences, possibly outside of NCAA control, with television resources shared only among themselves. I’m guessing it is. , weakening not only the NCAA’s highly lucrative Division I basketball tournament, but also the association itself. The Knight Commission, a sports reform group, approved a version of this proposal several years ago. The proposal would create a separate organization to oversee college football and playoff tournaments, while keeping sports authority within the NCAA for all other sports.
Some commentators on Tuesday viewed Baker’s plan as a ploy to avoid such an outcome and maintain NCAA unity. Opinions were divided about its prospects for success.
Walter Harrison, a former president of the University of Hartford and a longtime key participant in the NCAA’s governance process, said he sees a “hidden, powerful hand” from the so-called Power Five conferences in Baker’s proposal. He said he felt it. “Their answer,” Harrison said in an email, “is to create a subdivision that pays ‘compensation’ to all players. This also means that all member institutions will continue to be involved in large-scale soccer operations. It also means that major soccer schools reap a windfall while continuing to cover all costs (enforcement, rules, academics, etc.). [the expanded playoff structure]. On the surface, it seems unfair. ”
He also said that the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments would not be possible under Baker’s proposed structure because football powers “will pay their athletes, but other countries won’t (or at least not as much).” He also expressed doubts about whether it would survive. That would be disappointing for us fans and may mean the NCAA may not survive at all. ”
Weaver, a Penn State professor who was director of athletics before becoming an academic, said Baker’s proposal, if implemented, would force the issue on “hundreds of Division I campuses that can’t afford to invest in Baker.” “It will be.” Must be created by a new subcommittee member.
That includes some of the universities currently participating in top conferences, she said, adding that “there will be some difficult discussions on campus in the near future.”